It's one thing to experience your Broadway debut alone, but to share it with an entire company was like summer camp or a college experience, where you were really growing up together.

Coming out, for me, was slightly painful. It was a relief, but it was also painful.

As a kid growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, all I wanted to do was be on Broadway in a musical. 'Spring Awakening' kind of answered all of my questions and fulfilled all of my dreams - beyond my wildest dreams.

The idea of faking empathy to take a step forward to understanding - it's a really powerful idea.

My garage/office is strewn with Post-its, cards, folders, notebooks, yoga mats and multicoloured pens, all purchased in a quest to unlock a magic way of working that will ensure my ascension to next-level creativity.

In a book, you can describe a scene and have any song you want playing on the radio and have any painting you want hanging on the wall. That was really freeing to me when I was writing 'Ready Player One.' I could throw in everything that I love.

Actors, their greatest tool, their greatest resource is imagination. You can take things, power objects, you can recruit your dreams, you can access your memories and get there. So the idea is not to act but to just be.

The pleasures of the imagination are as it were only drawings and models which are played with by poor people who cannot afford the real thing.